


And The Abyss Gazed Back

by bite_or_avoid



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 11:41:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1224985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bite_or_avoid/pseuds/bite_or_avoid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elena finds him after, not knowing all the ways in which he is truly lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> One possible post 5x13 future

 

 

She finds him after.

 

There's a lot that happens in between, but she's not there for any of it. Not really.

 

She's not there when Enzo calls Stefan and gives him all the reason he needs, all the reason he's looking for, to go after his brother. Or for the nights that Katherine, wearing _her_ body like the latest in couture fashion, spends in cheap motels with the other vampire, doing things Elena doesn't want to know about. Or for the sight of Damon tearing Enzo to pieces just as they reach him. For the quiet desperation on Stefan's face at the realization that his brother is worse than a Ripper; worse than anything that's ever existed in the history of vampires, really, because even Mikael didn't _enjoy_ the utter horror of it quite this much.

 

It's Katherine who helps Stefan track Wes. Katherine, who stands poised and ready to snap the good doctor's neck after Stefan force-feeds him vampire blood.

 

Under threat of becoming the victim of his own creation, Wes makes the antidote.

 

And when Damon (vervained, injected, _cured_ ) twists off the doctor's head like a screw-top, turns on his heel and walks away without so much as a thank you, it's Katherine who watches.

 

Elena finds him after, not knowing all the ways in which he is truly lost.

 

 

***

 

 

In the end, it is neither brother who comes to her rescue.

 

Maybe it's because Damon walks away, and Stefan is too busy mourning Damon. Maybe it's because, for a while there, they were all seeing what they wanted to see.

 

So it's probably not totally surprising that when Katherine settles back into Elena's life at Whitmore, the only person who realizes that something isn't right is Caroline.

 

It's the little things that start to tip her off. Like how Elena suddenly likes her coffee black and her hair curly. That she goes ballistic over a sale at Neiman Marcus, but doesn't bat an eyelash over flunking her sociology midterm. It makes the blonde vampire look back on the preceding weeks and how her friend seemed to care about keeping Stefan close just a little too much, and about Damon taking a header into the deep end just not enough.

 

"Sounds like someone needs another session with big, bad Klaus," Elena (Katherine) says while Caroline is on one of her Tyler rants.

 

It comes off like a friendly suggestion really, but suddenly everything clicks into place.

 

Caroline tells Bonnie, who tells Jeremy, who can't find Matt, and by the time it's all said and done Nadia is locked in a cell at the Boarding House and Elena has a dagger in her gut.

 

She stands there, blinking.

 

The last thing she remembers is running to him, the relief, the knowledge that he would make everything okay...

 

When Stefan finally fills in the blanks, ducking his head in an effort to avoid her gaze, she has an overwhelming urge to resurrect Katherine Pierce just so she can kill her again.

 

 

***

 

 

"We have to find him, Stefan."

 

"We will."

 

She trusts the strength of his conviction, if only because it's the first time he can seem to look her in the eye.

 

 

***

 

 

"He's my brother," Stefan keeps saying. But it's only because he can't say the other thing. The real reason.

 

She wonders if either of the Salvatores has ever said it to the other. If either of them really knows, really understands.

 

She does, though. She understands.

 

He's done horrible things. His path of unbridled destruction should have been a wake-up call; an everlasting reminder of what he will always be capable of. Of what happens when he doesn't get his way.

 

He tore Aaron's throat out. He nearly got Jeremy killed. _Again_. He didn't care that she got staked.

 

It doesn't matter nearly as much as it should.

 

Despite Stefan's initial righteous indignation on her behalf, nothing changes.

 

He's still Damon, and they still love him.

 

At this point, she doesn't think anything he ever does will make her stop.

 

 

***

 

 

She finds him in a dive bar outside of Raleigh, North Carolina. She and Stefan had split up to cover more ground, and she ended up here on pure instinct.

 

She can admit to herself now that her instincts have always led right to Damon.

 

It was everything else that got in the way.

 

She feels him before she sees him, that familiar twisting ache somewhere deep that never really went the way of the sire bond. And then he's there, sitting at the bar, nursing his drink.

 

She stares at the side of his face, perfect and impassive. A smudge of blood on his cheek mars the otherwise flawless complexion.

 

"Damon." The merest whisper of his name, and her throat is suddenly parched with the effort.

 

He looks at her, through her. His eyes are blue ice.

 

"Well, if it isn't Little Miss Sunshine. Did my brother let you out for good behavior?"

 

There is no teasing lilt in his tone. No scorn or anger or jealousy. Just the mechanics of sound, laced with that hint of danger so familiar to her.

 

Everything about him is so familiar to her.

 

"No one _let_ me do anything, Damon. I had to see you. I had to explain..."

 

" _Me, me, I_... You're starting to sound justlike Katherine."

 

"I _was_ Katherine!"

 

He narrows his eyes at that, but all she can read in him is genuine interest. "I'm listening."

 

"She took over my body, Damon. She wore me around like a cheap suit, messing with my life."

 

Damon lets out a bark of laughter. It echoes strangely in the space between them, settling in the pit of her stomach like lead. "Sounds about right. Katherine Pierce, Body Snatcher Extraordinaire."

 

Elena shakes her head, willing him to understand. "You're not listening to me. Everything that happened, everything you think I said... it wasn't me. It was Katherine."

 

"So?"

 

He's not angry, or relieved, or _anything_ at all really, and there's ice water in her veins. "What's wrong with you?"

 

He leans in close, conspiratorial. He smells like bourbon and leather and _Damon_ , and for a moment she can almost believe that it's all an act. But then he speaks, and that niggling sense of dread blooms into a terrible understanding.

 

"For the first time in years, absolutely nothing."

 

"You didn't," she chokes out. "You couldn't have."

 

"Why not? My brother did. And anything he can do, I can do _better_. You should know that by now, Elena." Her name is a drawn out breath, wicked and knowing, and so, so cold.

 

She wants to grab him, shake him, to cry and scream and slap him and kiss him and make him feel something, anything. But she knows, better than anyone, that it won't turn his humanity back on.

 

She must look how she feels. Raw and gaping, hollowed out by the emptiness in him. He sees it, knows.

 

There is no pity in him anymore.

 

Damon looks at her again, that crystalline blue devoid of any spark. "Your boyfriend's gone, sweetheart. Deal with it."

 

 

***

 

 

Stefan returns to a trashed hotel room and an enraged ex-girlfriend.

 

"Of all the idiotic... why did he have to be so... so... _him._ "

 

Clearly, she catapulted over denial and right into anger.

 

The older vampire just lets her vent and then goes off to try his luck. He comes back forty minutes later with a rebar through his gut.

 

"Usually he stakes you. Is that progress?" Elena asks hopefully.

 

A muscle in his jaw ticks as she pulls out the offending piece of metal. She can't stand the sympathy oozing from his every pore.

 

"I know how this works, Stefan. I've been there, remember? We can't force him. Nothing will flip his switch back on until he wants it on."

 

The green eyes that are nothing like his brother's fix on her earnestly. "What if he never does?"

 

It's the first time in her life that she's ever hated Stefan.

 

 

***

 

 

She dreams about the night of Homecoming.

 

About that moment of realization and despair, when Damon had needed his brother more than she had.

 

_We're never getting Stefan back. You know that don't you?_

 

With him laid bare before her, she knew without a shadow of a doubt the potential of her feelings for him.

 

_Then we'll let him go. Ok? We'll have to let him go._

 

She doesn't know if she can offer Stefan the same comfort.

 

(She doesn't think she can let Damon go.)

 

 

***

 

 

The next time she sees him is in an alley.

 

It's behind a night club called _Pulse_ , and the only reason she's there is they ran out of blood and there's no hospital for miles. Stefan took to the woods, but she's exhausted both emotionally and physically, and much too raw to settle for anything less than her nature demands.

 

She picks that club because she likes the name.

 

Sometimes she's more like Damon than she wants to admit.

 

She rounds the corner and is about to head inside when a sound reaches her ears. It's a gasp, or a moan, and she follows it, already knowing what she'll find.

 

He's feeding from a girl, hand wrapped around flowing red hair to tilt her neck for better access. Her pink mouth is agape, caught somewhere between horror and rapture. She flails her hands about his arms and shoulders, tries to reel him in. Elena watches in stunned silence.

 

This isn't like him. At all.

 

There's no finesse to this.

 

His stance, his pace, the distance between them... This feed is almost perfunctory.

 

And she can tell, because there is that distance, because she knows his body as well as she does, that _Damon_ , whose dick reacts every time the wind blows, is not even aroused.

 

It doesn't make any sense.

 

It's the flailing that spurs her into motion. Because that girl isn't trying to pull him closer now; she's trying to push him away.

 

Damon doesn't look like he has any intention of letting her live.

 

Elena rips him away and gives the girl a hard shove towards the street.

 

"Excuse you, rude much?" His voice is hard, but there's little fire behind it.

 

"Uh, what the hell was that?"

 

"You ruining dinner?"

 

"You were going to kill her!"

 

"And you care because?"

 

She wants to say, _Because you're better than this_. But that's not really true anymore.

 

Maybe it never was.

 

So she settles for, "That looked weird."

 

He shrugs, wipes a hand across his bloodstained mouth. "I do not welcome criticism. Now scram."

 

"I'm serious. What's going on?"

 

There is nothing in his gaze but a wall of silence.

 

"Damon."

 

"It's not your responsibility anymore, Elena. Just go home, fuck my brother, and don't worry about the casualties. That's what you wanted anyway."

 

She flinches. He may as well have slapped her. "You can't possibly use what _she_ said against me. You have to know... how could you believe I would say that to you? _Do_ that to you?"

 

"So Katherine's a bitch, alert the media."

 

"That's not the point, Damon."

 

"Oh, but it is. Because she wasn't wrong." He says it strangely, rolling the 'r' and stretching the last syllable in that singsong way. "Was she, Elena?"

 

He doesn't stick around to hear her answer.

 

 

***

 

 

They take turns doing the stalking thing.

 

She doesn't know what happens between the brothers, or if Stefan is having any more luck than she is. He doesn't offer details, and she doesn't ask.

 

What she does know is that he comes back shrouded in desperation. More often than not, she has to dig sharp pointy things out of his body. He shakes his head and covers her hand and looks at her with such anguish that her eyes well with tears.

 

There are one hundred and forty eight years of _complicated_ etched onto his skin and she wishes it didn't still hurt so damn much.

 

_Then we'll let him go. Ok? We'll have to let him go._

 

There is blood in her mouth before she realizes how hard she's biting her tongue.

 

She can't find the grace to tell him they should stop.

 

 

***

 

 

_This isn't love,_ she thinks sometimes.

 

There's something selfish in it, something greedy.

 

Because hasn't she endured enough to have this one thing; to have it be hers simply because she wants it?

 

Deep in her marrow, she aches for him.

 

Like he's written on her DNA.

 

_You are my life_.

 

It consumes her, just like she knew it would. (Feared it would. Hoped it would.)

 

This isn't love.

 

This is something far more permanent.

 

 

***

 

 

"We _really_ need to stop meeting like this."

 

She's loitering outside the motel they trailed him to just a few hours before. She falls into step beside him and he allows it; allows her this small reprieve.

 

Maybe he just thinks the inevitable rejection will be that much sweeter for it.

 

"There's something wrong with you. Aside from the obvious, I mean. I can feel it." It tumbles out without preamble, but she's never minced words with him. If there's one thing that was ever pure, it was the truth that flowed between them.

 

"Says the vampire stalking her ex-boyfriend. Do I need to worry about boiling bunnies when I come back?"

 

"I mean it. If you're really switched off, then why not just tell me the rest?"

 

"Because it's not a caring sharing kind of day."

 

She stops walking, reaches out to touch his arm, but he pulls away from her grasp.

 

"You never gave up on me, Damon. Or on Stefan. What makes you think we'd give up on you?"

 

He steps into her, close, in a way that's meant to be threatening, but instead brings her a strange sort of comfort. He's always enjoyed pushing her buttons, gotten off on it actually, and the fact that he's trying to do it now is oddly reassuring.

 

It's the first sign she's had that any part of him is still in there at all.

 

"Has my baby bro been breathing sanctimonious nothings in your ear again? Stop trying to _save_ me, little girl." He hisses the word, _save_ ; spits it at her as if it were something vile. She tilts her chin up anyway.

 

"I'm not trying to save you. I just want you back. I want _us_ back."

 

She catches the predatory gleam in his eyes a second too late.

 

Then there's no space between them.

 

He has her pinned against the wall, one hand against her breast and the other inside her jeans.

 

"Is this what you want?" he growls as he curls his fingers inside her.

 

She can only gasp.

 

For a moment, Denver flickers across her memory. But she sees nothing in him now from that night.

 

There is no tenderness here.

 

It's hard and fast and brutal. As if he actually felt enough to want to punish her.

 

He brings her off with sure, swift fingers that know her every secret and don't care about a single one.

 

She stares at him unflinchingly as she comes; watches his nostrils flare and his jaw clench and feels the full hard length of him pressed against her leg.

 

It's satisfying to know that she can still affect him like this, at least.

 

And then his hand is gone with a nearly physical pain.

 

He levels her with a hard, blank stare. "You got what you came for. No pun intended. Now, if you don't back off, I'm going to get annoyed. You remember what happens then, don't you?"

 

Elena leans back against the wall and tells him the only thing she knows.

 

"I still love you, Damon."

 

"That sucks for you. Really."

 

And it so, so does. Because even like this, even shut off, he feels like home.


	2. Chapter 2

He doesn't shut off his humanity when you think he does.

 

It's still there when he goes all Night of the Living Dead on Aaron Whitmore. And when he threatens the kid he swore to protect; the kid for whose safety, up until a few short days ago, he would have done almost anything. When he watches Enzo stake Elena, the wood penetrating a little too close for comfort, it takes every ounce of anger and betrayal coursing through his veins to keep from rushing to her side. Protecting her is an instinct now, woven into the very fabric of who he is. His every step further into irredeemable territory is a direct rebellion against that instinct.

 

It's a relief to turn his back on their comically dismayed faces. As if they weren't both waiting for the moment he would fuck it all up. He means it when he says he has no intention of coming back.

 

Until karma bites him right in the ass.

 

He's not really surprised when Stefan and Elena come riding in like the vampire cavalry once they find out about his fun new party trick.

 

After all, his brother never did learn when to leave well enough alone.

 

This time it's _slightly_ less annoying than usual, primarily because the whole chewing other vampires' heads off thing is getting pretty inconvenient. Damon's never been the poster boy for self control or anything, but he's pretty sure this Ripper-On-Steroids scenario is a tad much, even for him.

 

And he has to admit, the whole play is pretty damn effective. Apparently even St. Stefan has a limit to his patience, because he goes right for the 'do what I want or I will turn you into a vampire and have my newly cannibalistic brother eat your face' approach.

 

Oldest trick in the book.

 

So, as soon as he gets the antidote he takes Dr. Frankenstein's head and twists it clean off. Just for good measure, you know? It's not like anyone's gonna miss the creeper.

 

But then she looks at him, this girl he thinks is Elena.

 

Her features are painted with a kind of disdain that cuts him right to the core.  That's when he sees everything clearly for what feels like the first time.

 

It was easy enough to blame Katherine as she lay dying, (although not definitively enough, as it turned out). To put it all on this frail, fading body that reminded him so much of the mortality he lost.

 

The mortality he gave her.

 

She took his innate goodness, his kind human heart, and used it up until there was nothing but an empty husk. He tried to fill it with bitterness, and anger, and an endless litany of ways to screw with his brother's life, but it was never enough to heal that wound, raw and gaping even after a century.

 

Until a human girl filled him up again, beyond anything he could have imagined. And now she's looking at him as if he's finally done something she can't defend. And, yeah, he probably has. Because, really, when you come down to it, that's just him.

 

If there's one thing he knows how to do, it's own his shit.

 

That's the moment he decides. Fuck this. Fuck it all.

 

He commits the look on her face to memory. (As if he could ever forget.)

 

If that pesky humanity ever slips through the cracks, all he needs to do is remember this moment. Right here. He put that look there and he _owns_ it. (Even though it's not really her. Katherine always knew how to cut with a glance as assuredly as any dagger.)

 

There's only so much hurt a man can take.

 

Whatever broken, mangled excuse for a soul is still in him, he doesn't fucking want it.

 

He flips the switch.

 

Damon doesn't shut off his humanity when you think he does, but the _when_ isn't really the part that matters.

 

 

***

 

 

If he thought (or cared) about it even a little, he could have guessed that they would follow him all over the damn southeast.

 

Again, with the leaving well enough alone thing. He really tries to impress the concept onto Stefan. With a rebar, amongst other things.

 

The only part that surprises him in any of this is how crafty Katherine got in her quest for survival. Really, though, that should surprise him least of all.

 

(He laughs about it. Elena doesn't seem to think it's funny, but she tends to have a stick up her shapely ass about these kinds of things.)

 

 

***

 

 

The stalking starts to get to him. Not because there's any danger of gross, messy feelings getting evoked. It's because they're cramping his style. By the time Elena catches him outside that club, he's debating a variation of the Fuck Lexi plan from the last time Stefan was dumb enough to try and rehabilitate him.

 

And then she has to go and _know_ him like she does. She has to see that the redhead just isn't doing it for him. He's not about to tell her that no one does it for him anymore. That ever since that goddamn antidote he can't enjoy feeding on vampires _or_ humans. That he's a broken fucking toy, but he's going to keep right on trying to revel in it because the alternative is too damn depressing.

 

Instead he tells her to fuck off, basically.

 

Something bitter twists inside him at the thought, and he tells the flicker of emotion to fuck off, too.

 

He goes and finds himself a blonde to eat. He's always been an equal opportunity monster.

 

 

***

 

 

He shouldn't have touched her.

 

Then again, there's a whole list of things he shouldn't have done, but he doesn't really give a rat's ass about _shouldn't_ , so there's that.

 

It's arrogance that screws it all up. Which is a nice change from blindly pathetic love, he supposes, but still.

 

He's secure enough in the new and improved Damon Salvatore that he can do whatever he wants and not suffer the consequences. Cause that's worked out so nicely for him in the past.

 

Pride goeth before...

 

Yeah, that.

 

Hubris was always his least favorite sin for a reason.

 

His favorite was always a toss-up between lust and wrath, and it's probably a little of both that makes him do it.

 

Because she's standing there, challenging him like she always has, and even though he doesn't feel anything per se, he _wants_ her on a very primal level. That kind of almost pisses him off a little, because he also wants her to go away. So he does what he wants, takes what he wants. And the kicker is, she lets him. Just accepts what he's dishing out and then hits him right between the eyes with her truth. It's pathetic, really, how far she's willing to go.

 

How far she's willing to go _for him_. She's doing this for him.

 

That's when he finally gets it. He keeps thinking that if he's just cruel enough, that if he does something unforgivable, she'll leave him in peace. But he carries a whole history full of unforgivable deeds, especially where Elena's concerned, and somehow she's still here.

 

For the rest of the night he keeps reliving her eyes locked on his as she shatters around his fingers and he can't help it, the thought just slips through.

 

_It's a lie, you know. There's no switch you can turn off. Sure, when you're a newbie, but after a couple of hundred years you just have to pretend._

 

He really shouldn't have touched her.

 

Of all the mistakes he's made recently, this one is the most costly.

 

 

***

 

 

Damon doesn't expect that little stunt with Elena to be any kind of deterrent for her, so he's surprised when no one follows him the next morning. But he's definitely not looking for her around every corner as he goes about the day; definitely not waiting for Stefan to sidle up on the barstool next to his and make him simultaneously bored _and_ annoyed. And he's most definitely not worried when nearly sixteen hours have passed and there's still no sign of his unwelcome posse.

 

Good riddance.

 

He ends up at their hotel anyway and curses himself for it.

 

Deep down though, he senses the tether that pulled him here. He knows there's something wrong even before he reaches the open door, or feels the crunch of broken glass beneath his feet. The familiar scent lingers in the air before he ever stands at the edge of a ravaged room and sees Elena's blood. 

 

He can't keep the fear from seeping out around the edges he's drawn himself into, and in that moment, he doesn't care.

 

 

***

 

 

He follows some otherworldly sense back to that abandoned hospital near Whitmore College.

 

Actually, he follows the grease stains Stefan's Porsche leaves on the asphalt. He really needs to remind his brother to check the oil plug.

 

Damon gives himself all kinds of reasons for why he's willingly creeping around the place where he got all jacked up on cannibal juice to begin with. He owes Stefan, no one gets to kill his brother but him, Elena's too good a piece of ass to just let her bleed out, et cetera, et cetera.

 

Deep down he knows that he's already reverted to where sometimes he does things just because it's Elena.

 

It's not even shocking how fast he got all the way back here, and that really sucks. Like, he's just doomed to fail at everything when it comes to her, even when he's trying to walk away.

 

 

***

 

 

There are these lazy little puddles of blood on the ground. Side by side next to their bodies. A matching set, His and Hers.

 

Whoever the hell drained them did a thorough job of it.

 

He knows, objectively, that you can't kill a vampire this way. It's still unsettling seeing Stefan and Elena like this, depleted and cadaverous.

 

Damon sighs, bites into each wrist, drips blood into their mouths until they revive enough to latch on. He cradles each head in his lap and closes his eyes, something in his chest loosening a little. There has to be some kind of symbolism in it, he thinks, him in the middle like this.

 

He believed it would always be Elena wedged between them.

 

 

***

 

 

"It was the Travelers," Stefan explains, as they ration out the blood bags in his trunk. "They seemed to need us alive last time, but I guess with Wes dead, it doesn't matter anymore."

 

"He was studying the mystical properties of doppleganger blood for them, I think," Elena offers. The color finally returns to her cheeks as she finishes her O-pos.

 

Damon scoffs. "Of course he was. Aren't you two sick of all the doppledrama?"

 

"Do we have a say in the matter?"

 

"As always, brother, you fail to be even a little useful." He pauses, tries to ignore the ease with which he falls back into this dance. "Any idea where the blood-jackers went on their magical mystery tour?"

 

"Oh, God." Elena's eyes are wide with alarm. "They said something about needing the Anchor..."

 

"And the hijinks just keep on comin'."

 

Stefan is already in motion, focus and determination suffusing his face. "I'll call Caroline. Elena, warn Bonnie, and then you and Damon--"

 

"She and Damon _what_? You think just because I saved your squirrel-chasing ass-- you're welcome, I might add-- we're all going to hold hands and sing Kumbaya?"

 

"Seriously, Damon? Are you really going to keep pretending like none of this matters?"

 

"That's weird. You're talking to me as if I care."

 

Stefan's green eyes fix on him, alight with the strangest combination of disappointment and empathy. For a moment, he sees their mother when, in a fit of boyish petulance, he proclaimed hatred of his new baby brother, and he wants desperately to look away.  

 

"You do care. Know how I know that? You're here." He turns to Elena. "See if you can talk some sense into him."

 

"Don't forget to groom your hero hair before any big showdowns. It looks like shit."

 

Stefan flips him off as he walks away.

 

 

***

 

 

Elena watches him carefully.

 

Given how their last solo encounter turned out, he figures she has every right to be wary.

 

"Stefan's right, you know."

 

"If I had a quarter for every time I heard that, I'd have a shitload of quarters."

 

The corners of her mouth curve up almost of their own volition. "You care. I cut myself before the Travelers overpowered me because I knew you would look for us."

 

"You--" He doesn't finish the thought, no longer sure how to quell this misplaced faith in him. She senses his hesitation, pounces on it like the predator she is.

 

"Stefan needs you. _I_ need you. You don't have to disappoint us just to prove that you can."

 

_It's not that I can_ , he wants to say. _It's that I'm going to._

 

The seeds that first his father and then Katherine sowed, all those years ago, had flowered in the core of him, until the fear became a self-fulfilling truth.

 

That he would never be enough.

 

He tried to fight that knowledge, and maybe he shouldn't have.

 

It's not about being good for her, or for himself, or for anyone. There's no _good_ left anymore.

 

"Don't try to appeal to the humanity in me, Elena. There is no 'better man', and if you believe different then you're even more delusional than I thought."

 

A wistful smile ghosts across her lips. "That's the thing, Damon. I know exactly who you are. I've always known. I knew exactly who I was getting involved with. All I ever wanted was for you to love me, to be there for me. If you're so convinced that you didn't live up to someone's expectations, maybe they were your own."

 

It's a split second in which her words throw him off balance, in which he can't respond, and a split second is all she needs.

 

She kisses him. All soft lips and painstaking tenderness and a hint of melancholy. She kisses him like it's the first time, or the last time. He isn't sure which. And when she pulls away (too soon. not soon enough), he can't shake the feeling that whatever battle he thought he was fighting, it was lost a long time ago.

 

Her proximity has invaded every crack and crevice in his already crumbling wall and it doesn't look like she has any intention of stopping the assault.

 

"Let's go home, Damon."

 

Her words release the pressure that's been building inside his chest since the moment he touched her. If he's honest, since the moment he realized that she wouldn't let him go.

 

He may not deserve her, but she is the only home he's ever known.

 

He nods.

 

 

 

 

_FIN_


End file.
